Chapter 51 - Page 2

young trees down, exposing the pale underside
of the leaves; and gust after gust followed, in quick succession,
thrashing the branches violently up and down, and to this side and that,
and creating swift waves of alternating green and white according
to the side of the leaf that was exposed, and these waves raced
after each other as do their kind over a wind-tossed field of oats.
No color that was visible anywhere was quite natural--all tints
were charged with a leaden tinge from the solid cloud-bank overhead.
The river was leaden; all distances the same; and even the far-reaching
ranks of combing white-caps were dully shaded by the dark,
rich atmosphere through which their swarming legions marched.
The thunder-peals were constant and deafening; explosion followed explosion
with but inconsequential intervals between, and the reports grew steadily
sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying to the ear; the lightning
was as diligent as the thunder, and produced effects which enchanted
the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixed delight and apprehension
shivering along every nerve in the body in unintermittent procession.
The rain poured down in amazing volume; the ear-splitting thunder-peals
broke nearer and nearer; the wind increased in fury and began to wrench
off boughs and tree-tops and send them sailing away through space;
the pilot-house fell to rocking and straining and cracking and surging,
and I went down in the hold to see what time it was.

People boast a good deal about Alpine thunderstorms;
but the storms which I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not
the equals of some which I have seen in the Mississippi Valley.
I may not have seen the Alps do their best, of course,
and if they can beat the Mississippi, I don't wish to.

On this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a
mile long, which had been formed during the past nineteen years.
Since there was so much time to spare that nineteen years
of it could be devoted to the construction of a mere towhead,
where was the use, originally, in rushing this whole globe through
in six days? It is likely that if more time had been taken,
in the first place, the world would have been made right, and this
ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessary now.
But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to find
out by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet,
or some other little convenience, here and there, which has
got to be supplied, no matter how much expense and vexation
it may cost.

We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was observable
that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees with the intense
sunburst of the electric light, a certain